EHEDG recognizes the work of Rafael Soro, AINIA specialist in engineering and hygienic design

The European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group (EHEDG) has recognized Rafael Soro, specialist in engineering and hygienic design of AINIA Technological Center, during the General Assembly held last week in Amsterdam.

This is an award to the professional and personal trajectory of Rafael Soro that he extends to the whole team: "This award is a recognition of our work at EHEDG, it is a shared prize. Irene Llorca and I are collaborating in EHEDG for 15 years (in Training and Education, Certification, we represent EHEDG-Spain, etc.). Andres Pascual also actively joined EHEDG a few years ago and has quickly moved to play a very important role in the organization ".

The EHEDG was founded in 1989 as a non-profit consortium of equipment manufacturers, food producers, food industry suppliers, research institutes and universities, as well as public health authorities and government organizations. Its main objective is to promote food safety by improving engineering and hygienic design in all aspects of food manufacturing.

AINIA is an active member of the organization EHEDG (European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group) and representative of the Spanish Regional Section of that organization. In addition, it is one of the seven centers in the world authorized by EHEDG for the evaluation and certification of equipment against the criteria established by that organization.

These requirements apply to hygienic design and cleaning. The hygienic design takes into account all details related to construction materials, surface finishes, absences from dead zones, drainage, etc., which give a installation the guarantees of being a barrier to the contamination of the product. With regard to cleaning, it is necessary to ensure that the applied products are effective against microorganisms at risk, for which clean-in-place (CIP). Cleaning and disinfection protocols are defined and verified and these protocols are determined taking into account the ecological factor, with the aim of reducing water consumption, reduce the pollutant load of the waste water and, therefore, the costs. Some cleaning techniques that are used are ozone, ozonated water, supercritical water ...